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TIGSource ForumsCommunityJams & EventsCompetitionsOld CompetitionsCockpit CompetitionUntitled Prison Guard Game [CANCELED]
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mrfredman
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« on: February 23, 2009, 05:02:27 PM »

So I made a prototype a few weeks ago for a game that I don't think will ever fully be realized so I think I'm going to take the game mechanic I've already set up and give it a cockpit and some brand new art and context, but I haven't really decided what direction to take the game in yet, so I was hoping maybe you guys could help me brainstorm and figure out what I should do with this game.

A brief explanation of the prototype and then some ideas that I had:

The original concept was that you play a general who must indirectly reinforce his army during a battle. He does that by choosing reinforcements and then sending them to a certain part of the battle to try and bolster his troops and break through the enemy line. The prototype is nowhere near complete, I just have the very basic core mechanic set up.

Essentially what I have so far is an object which slowly loses life and two buttons that you can use to add life to your army at different rates to raise its life before it ticks away. You click a button and then click on a segment of the army to make its life go up, if not they just slowly tick down to zero and you lose. That's all I've got.

I thought that it would be pretty easy to just draw a cockpit HUD, make the buttons part of the cockpit, and make them affect whatever is going on in the actual monitor (or however the gamespace is articulated).

I had a few thoughts about a new context but they are all sorta meh, so I was hoping you guys could help me develop on them or come up with something new.

I was thinking that it could be a game about preventing something from dying, like a game where you have to water and feed a plant or a small animal. Or it could be more morbid, like a game where you have a few prisoners and they are all dying and you have to either torture them or prevent them from dying. The game mechanic here would be that you would have a selection of tools in your HUD which you could choose to use on different subjects, and different things you clicked on would have different effects.

It could also just be some sort of relatively generic space shooter that involves clicking on buttons to charge attacks and then clicking on your targets to attack/destroy them. It could also be a tactical rts sorta thing, but that would be a bit more complex.

My last idea is a bit more abstract... but its kinda the opposite of the first idea, you have towers (or something) that are slowly growing and you have to prevent them from growing by pressing the buttons on your HUD and using different attacks to slow them down/destroy them.

Thoughts? Criticism? Ideas?

I know that eventually something will get made, seeing as I've still got plenty of time and a good chunk of the work done already, but right now I'm a bit unsure of my ideas and I need some hope solidifying them/coming up with something new.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2009, 11:15:08 AM by mrfredman » Logged
Fuzz
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« Reply #1 on: February 23, 2009, 05:21:48 PM »

Or it could be more morbid, like a game where you have a few prisoners and they are all dying and you have to either torture them or prevent them from dying. The game mechanic here would be that you would have a selection of tools in your HUD which you could choose to use on different subjects, and different things you clicked on would have different effects.
This seems like the most interesting idea to me.
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« Reply #2 on: February 23, 2009, 05:34:05 PM »

I'm not much for morbid..

What about something Fantastic Voyage-ish? You're piloting a micro-pill ship through the arteries, veins, and organs of a person. You move to different parts of the body, hunting down viruses, bacteria, cancer.. your controls are your different tools to counteract growth. A tool can inhibit growth, do nothing, or promote growth (which would be bad) depending on the target. You could release antibiotics into the body and you'd kill off some minor bugs, but others would gain resistance and mutate... trying to think of things to use the basic buttons -> world effect mechanic. The body is the "object" with health.
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mrfredman
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« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2009, 02:21:54 PM »

So I've picked an idea to pursue and I'm getting to work. This game is gonna contain a 'prison guard cockpit' which is really just a massive interactive HUD of a dungeon containing a few prisoners. The prisoners are slowly dying and it is up to you as the prison guard to decide who to feed, who to punish, and who should die. I haven't actually decided what the objective is yet (to keep a prisoner alive for x amount of time, to somehow free the prisoners, or to just leave it open-ended and have it be a kinda of sandbox morality game).

I am currently hard at work, and mockups, prisoner sprites, and prison guard HUD should surface within the next 48 hours or so
« Last Edit: February 25, 2009, 07:08:36 PM by mrfredman » Logged
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« Reply #4 on: February 25, 2009, 04:10:21 PM »

So I've picked an idea to pursue and I'm hard at work. This game is gonna contain a 'prison guard cockpit' which is really just a massive interactive HUD of a dungeon containing a few prisoners. The prisoners are slowly dying and it is up to you as the prison guard to decide who to feed, who to punish, and who should die. I haven't actually decided what the objective is yet (to keep a prisoner alive for x amount of time, to somehow free the prisoners, or to just leave it open-ended and have it be a kinda of sandbox morality game).

I am currently hard at work, and mockups, prisoner sprites, and prison guard HUD should surface within the next 48 hours or so
Sounds great.
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ElTipejoLoco
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« Reply #5 on: February 25, 2009, 04:19:58 PM »

Is it possible to feed all of the prisoners? Or is food a scarce resource? Additionally, do you get any background info. on individual prisoners? These would all be things that would affect my choices in a game like this... I wonder what you'll end up with when you're done.
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« Reply #6 on: February 25, 2009, 04:23:42 PM »

What is Soylent Green?
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« Reply #7 on: February 25, 2009, 04:25:10 PM »

What is Soylent Green?
Evil
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mrfredman
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« Reply #8 on: February 25, 2009, 07:07:34 PM »

Is it possible to feed all of the prisoners? Or is food a scarce resource? Additionally, do you get any background info. on individual prisoners? These would all be things that would affect my choices in a game like this... I wonder what you'll end up with when you're done.

That's kind of what I'm thinking about at the moment. What I would love to do would be have 3 or 4 unique prisoners with unique dying animations and you only have enough food to save one, but that would require a lot of expert spriting, that I'm not sure I'll have time for it all.

I think its all gonna come down to what I'm actually able to accomplish in the given amount of time. If things don't go as fast as I hope, it may just wind up that the point of the game is to try and keep your prisoners from dying for as long as you can. But if I'm actually able to articulate what I'm dreaming of, the game will be about the moral choices you are given in a guard/prisoner relationship where the only rewards or consequences for your actions are a sense of guilt for letting your charges die or a sense of satisfaction for feeding them and keeping them alive.

We'll see what happens.
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mrfredman
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« Reply #9 on: February 26, 2009, 09:15:59 AM »

I've got my first prisoner sprite.



I'm not sure I'm happy with the face, feedback is appreciated.

I'm also at least 50% done with the HUD, but I'm trying to work some perspective in and its giving my difficulty... hopefully it'll show up soon.
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Hempuli‽
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« Reply #10 on: February 26, 2009, 11:19:38 AM »

He's got the 'Follow me!'
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« Reply #11 on: February 26, 2009, 11:28:27 AM »

Hm!  I was imagining this setting being modern, but it looks a lot further in the past.  Interesting!
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« Reply #12 on: February 26, 2009, 01:24:58 PM »

Better keep an eye on that one.  He might dig his way out of the prison, discover a stash of hidden pirate gold, buy his way into power, and then screw with you until you cause your own demise.  Especially if you married the woman he was dating at the time of his imprisonment.
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« Reply #13 on: February 26, 2009, 04:32:24 PM »

I've got my first prisoner sprite.



I'm not sure I'm happy with the face, feedback is appreciated.

I'm also at least 50% done with the HUD, but I'm trying to work some perspective in and its giving my difficulty... hopefully it'll show up soon.

The only problem I see with that guy is that his beard doesn't look like a beard, it looks like a lion's mane. So, is this going to be a medieval dungeon rather than a modern prison?
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mrfredman
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« Reply #14 on: March 02, 2009, 12:42:11 PM »

So I think I've got the HUD, sorta complete. To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely happy with it yet, but I can't put my finger on why.



Yup, thats my cockpit.

And here's how its gonna work: the tools the player uses to interact with the prisoners are gonna be sitting on the table and each will have some sort of animated gauge as to how long before they recharge and how many of each you have left. The prisoners are gonna be sitting in their cell's slowly dying, I'm not sure if there is gonna be an external health-meter or if the health will all be shown with the animation. The little black hole next each cell is the rat-gauge which will show how many rats are going into the cell (it will be a meter of how much food each prisoner has, and the player may be able to control the rat-flow (I haven't decided yet)). The last cockpit gauge I have planned out is the big black thing at the top, which is going to be the time indicator, it isn't gonna have any effect on gameplay, but the player should be able to see the sun and moon alternately setting and rising.

As you can see, I'm trying to squeeze as many useless animations and measurements into the HUD to make it as cockpit-like as I can, I've thought hard, and those were all I can think of. But if anyone has any ideas about how I can cram more useless information onto this HUD, I'm totally open to suggestions.

I'm also not entirely happy with the way it looks now, too many flagstones. I might have to change that. This isn't the final version, but I'd say the basic non-animated background is  95% done or so. My next task is to start animating the prisoner sprite, then I'll work on the art for the various animated buttons and gauges. I hope to have those close to done by the end of the week.



« Last Edit: March 02, 2009, 12:45:30 PM by mrfredman » Logged
mrfredman
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« Reply #15 on: March 10, 2009, 09:55:18 PM »



So I'm making progress... but slowly...

I'm a bit overwhelmed by school at the moment, I'm not sure how much of this game is gonna be completed. I should have a very basic gameplay prototype by the end of the compo, but it'll very likely be severely lacking any sort of polish.

Wish me luck... and time...
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Synnah
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« Reply #16 on: March 11, 2009, 12:34:54 AM »

Nice animation!

Good luck with getting things done! Smiley Hand Thumbs Up Right
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mrfredman
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« Reply #17 on: March 19, 2009, 11:23:19 AM »

So sadly, I think I'm gonna have to give this one the canceled stamp. I'm gonna place a decent amount of blame on Gamemaker, I've had no end of problems trying to get it run properly on my Vista laptop, I have practically all the art done, but I've been unable to implement any of it. I guess the time has come to learn flash.

I mean I'm certainly partially to blame for being lazy and not figuring this all out and maybe switching platforms earlier, but whatever, maybe I'll have better luck next time.

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Fuzz
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« Reply #18 on: March 19, 2009, 11:38:26 AM »

It's sad to see so many great games getting canceled in this compo.
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